We are Victorious

It's a good thing I'm kind of ahead of myself as all of a sudden it's "INFERNO" season. That's when the temperatures are too hot to rain (115 to 120F) then it cools ever so slightly but the humidity goes up. Yes, from single digits to forty percent or better. It wants to rain.
When it does rain, we stop what we're doing and watch the sky or even better, stand out in the drizzle and act like we've never seen water fall from the heavens. Well, we get about three inches a year, so it's not a normal occurrence.
We haven't yet seen it where we could use a little less of it--where it pours all at once for twenty minutes. The weather wonks call it "monsoon" season. Back East it was "HHH" for hazy, hot and humid.
I guess i just need to add another "H." And it's not for "hilarious."

Here are some thoughts on "Physics" for the EIM. I'm glad I saved Einstein for this week.

That's a solar flare thanks to NASA; a hydrogen bomb test code-named, "Ivy Mike," from the DOEnergy files; another NASA image, the Helix Galaxy, also known as the "Eye of God," and Albert Einstein, who advocated a liberal dose of imagination in life. I'm glad his brain did a lot of heavy lifting so we don't have to!

Last week was an investigation into "Victory" for this week's TwobyTwobyTuesday. I liked what I did, but one in particular needed a quick revamp:

Funny, that's what the Diva was thinking for her challenge to us tangly people. I didn't so much rework an old piece (the point of the exercise) so much as just re-do it.

The one on the right was done while I was still in that "will-not-shade-at-any-cost" phase, while working through the exercises in "One Zentangle a Day." The scribbles are an indication of what the string looked like. The new one has dimension (including using the General white charcoal for highlights), a full-range of tones from light to dark, but lacks variety in form. Everything is a similar size. I need to diversify!
(BTW, I still haven't finished that book. WAAAAY too many different types of materials needed, even for me! Yet, it's a great introduction to method outside official Zentangle releases and a source book for tangles and methods).

I finally did last week's IAST. It seemed disingenuous of me to skip over an important milestone for Adele's blog just because I didn't like the string. I shy away from representative images as it shuts down  my creative juices and I just could not make this one work in its original form. So I rotated the string and made a mirror image of it. The result is a full-moon garden which evolved when I didn't worry about what it should be. The stripe represents the Milky Way, much like graphic representations of the stars in Native American petroglyphs.
So much for non-representational artforms....

Colored with Spectrum Noir professional pencils. (ANYBODY out there have the Essentials set??! Must have...And then there's the whole batch of watercolor sets they came out with! No more art supplies, ha!) And I'm very happy with my new Brother all-in-one; color scans are spot-on. I love Photoshop, but if I don't have to use it, all the better.

To my friends stateside, a very happy Fourth. And to all, have a brilliant day! c

Life and Liberty

It's that time of year here in the States that we celebrate our very existence. Two hundred and forty years ago we got really rambunctious and wrestled for our independence much like a three year-old at a candy store. I can't say that life has improved but we still have some inalienable rights--to say what we want, bear arms or arm bears and defend anyone else to pretty much do as they damn well please.
So, we have a giant party that has more to do with the pursuit of happiness than life and liberty. There are barbeques, parades and if the weather cooperates, FIREWORKS!
(Here in the desert, they can get called off for mostly wind and high fire risk. If we don't get rain this week, there may have to be cancellations. I hope not. I like watching them).
Thus you have my contribution for the EIM, "party."

I compiled a few flag images while I was working on next week's TwobyTwo. The word there is, "Victory." Please take a peek at the some of the prompts I put together; it was a lot of fun and if the mood suits, participate? Love to have you join the fun. Go ahead and look. I'll be here waiting for you.
Anywho, these are what came about as I tinkered with some ideas.

I selected flags that are appropriate for an era--the bottom one represents the original thirteen colonies with the Declaration of Independence; the middle has the Marines raising the forty-eight-star flag at Iwo Jima (Arizona was the 48th state, admitted Valentine's Day, 1912) and the top is our current flag, the Statue of Liberty, our Pledge of Allegiance with the sonnet, "The New Colossus." To me, these images represent the fight for those freedoms.
Indeed, the pen is mightier than the sword.
I like to think I have super powers wielding my trusty Sharpie. This is what we accomplished this week:

That's for the Diva 272, black and white and red all-over. Not the most original comp, but it kept me busy filling in all those squares.
Thanks for checking on what I've been up to. Be sure to see what all the other artists out there have been up to...Hope you have a brilliant day. c